Pages

Friday, May 27, 2016

Anime Review: Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan)

Rating: 9/10I will be using SNK as abbreviation.

Humanity is forced to live behind 3 layers walls to protect themselves from gigantic Humanoid creatures called the “Titan”, who devour human beings just for pleasure. Due to the building of gigantic walls that are higher than even the largest of titans, humanity was able to survive peacefully until one day a colossal Titan was able to break through the first layer of wall enabling smaller Titans to enter and feast on humans living in the outskirts. Eren, a young boy witnesses the loss of his mother and decides to enroll in the Survey Corps with his childhood friend Armin and Mikasa. Thus begins the tale of a brave boy, who undergoes hard training and faces life threatening situations for just one aim, to kill every Titan and earn freedom to safely discover the land that lies beyond the 3 walls.SUCCESS FORMULA- Good Story+Good characters+superb action=$$$

I’ll begin by saying that it has been a long time since an anime made me feel hollow after finishing it. SNK has what it takes to be a memorable piece of art, something that will be cherished by its its admirers for a very long time.The story of SNK is very interesting. It is story of struggle and survival and believe me, it is goddamn deep. Humans live behind walls named Maria, Rose and Sina. Behind first wall live people who are not very rich. a similar situation exists with the people living behind second wall, while the higher class and the king resides behind the third wall. SNK’s story is ideal depiction of true human nature. It is a beautiful tale of bunch of young people who have to make tough decisions which act as deciding factor when considering their survival. Other good thing is that the story is full of plot twists, so don’t expect that you will be easily able to take a break after just a few episodes.

What really make SNK a marvel, are its characters. Their are lots and lots and lots of characters but surprisingly, I was able to keep track of each of them (considering that Baccano really f*ed up my brain). The main character is Eren Yeager, a young boy who dreams of going outside the walls and explore the world. He has quite a rebellious nature and can’t stand people avoiding the fight against Titans. Due to the chain of events that occur, he decides to undergo military training and then join the survey corps or the Recon corps, a military division which overtakes missions outside the walls and have the highest death rate, other branches being Garrison, who are responsible for the defense and maintenance of walls and The Military Police, who are responsible for maintaining peace inside the innermost wall. Eren has no fear of death and is willing to sacrifice his own life for others. He has only one goal-to eradicate every Titan. Other notable character is Armin, technically, he relies on everyone else for his safety and is unable to fight Titans head on at first, but his real strength lies in making strategies and coming up with countermeasures. He lacks bravery, physical strength but is motivated and has exceptional thinking skills. I like how he rises from a weakling to become an important member of the survey corps.Now it is time to reveal my favorite character, if you have already watched SNK, you might have guessed it by now. It is Mikasa, yep the superhuman beauty with amazing fighting skills who follows Eren around. She is a childhood friend of both Eren and Armin. Due to some unfortunate events, she had to stay with the Yeager family. Although she is well composed and calm most of the time, she looses her mind every time she senses that Eren is in danger. Do you know what you call a girl like her? Yep, you guessed it right; Yandere.

I spot Yandere

Yandere girls got a superior appeal to them that attracts a lot of attention even from casual anime fans. She has a quiet personality and her only aim in life is to protect Eren and fulfil his every wish (nothing adult rated).

The Art and animation is outstanding with brilliant stills and well detailed action scenes. Same goes for music, the OST is pretty good with nice opening and ending songs. So, for me SNK got a perfect score in both animation and sound department.

Attack on Titan was good, but was still not able to get a perfect 10 due to a single reason; The monologues. To put it simply, they were too damn long and too damn boring, but they were important for the character development. Other than that, I don’t think SNK has any other major flaws.

So, in the end, SNK is a must watch anime that has a very high entertainment factor with a memorable cast and story.It is meant for a wide range of audience and that is also one of the reason’s for its success. On the surface, it might look like a normal survival anime but in reality it is full of tension and plot twists that you might not expect to come. I strongly recommend that you go virgin into this anime (i.e. don’t read any spoilers) to have a true experience. Just bear with those long monologues and enjoy the show.I am now editing this review before publishing after about 2 months of writing it and still SNK has the same effect on me (considering that I watched it about 3 months ago).

Who would watch SNK?No audience restriction here, but there are people who are only into light and moe stuff, ohh sorry, there are moe titans so let us cancel that one. But for people who like light stuff like Place to Place or Usagi Drop, I have bad news for you if you are planning to watch SNK.